James I

Description

Conditioned by a childhood surrounded by the rivalries of the Stewart family, and by eighteen years of enforced exile in England, James I was to prove a king very different from his elderly and conservative forerunners. This major study draws on a wide range of sources, assessing James I's impact on his kingdom. Michael Brown examines James's creation of a new, prestigious monarchy based on a series of bloody victories over his rivals and symbolised by lavish spending at court.

Michael Brown is Professor of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews. He is the author of a number of books including Disunited Kingdoms: Peoples and Politics in the British Isles 1280-1460 and Bannockburn: The Scottish War and the British Isles,1307-1323. His research interests are political society of Scotland c.1250-c.1500. He has published studies of the practice and ideology of royal and aristocratic lordship in Scotland.

'This is an important book, and not only because it is the first full-length biography of James I for nearly sixty years. It is a clearly written and innovative political study, drawn from a deep knowledge of the contemporary documents and chronicles. It gives a challenging, not to say unattractive, picture of a royal thug' - Books in Scotland